


In the Shadow of the Pillars

by zuzeca



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Continuity What Continuity, Drinking, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mizushipping, Multi, Post-Dark Side Of Dimensions, Prideshipping, Puzzleshipping, Reincarnation, Tongue-in-cheek, flareshipping, rivalshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 04:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzeca/pseuds/zuzeca
Summary: Seto Kaiba's trip beyond the veil does not go quite as planned, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.





	In the Shadow of the Pillars

**Author's Note:**

> *coughs* So this is the part where I admit that I was absolute Yu-Gi-Oh! trash as a young pre-teen, and apparently time has not changed this. Yes I went to see Dark Side of Dimensions, only to get run over by the speeding train of gay card game hell once again. I never participated in the fandom back in the day due to this being pre-the days of common home internet access (so thankfully my 12 year-old self's attempts at fanfiction are consigned to composition notebooks), but I guess this is making up for lost time? I don't even know what this is precisely. It started out a bit tongue-in-cheek and then devolved into a hot mess of sad, gay nerds. It's also probably evident that I'm a Puzzleshipper at my core, but I exited the theater with a burning thirst for Flareshipping so kudos to the movie for making me ship these nerds in a way I never did before. Also it's worth noting that while I realize that DSoD carries on from the manga, I make reference to the Orichalchos arc, so consider this a bit of a continuity hash. Happy reading and enjoy!

Seto Kaiba couldn't claim that the past, or the afterlife--everything certainly had a golden glow about it that suggested a vague sort of divinity--was anything like he might have expected. There was more sand for one. And the expression on Atem’s face had a lot less gravitas and a lot more exasperation than Kaiba had imagined when he'd first swept into the throne room, head held high and Duel Disk on his arm, and declared his challenge in front of the gaggle of robed weirdos clustered around the throne.

“Kaiba…” said Atem, after the several moments of awkward silence--at least answering the question of whether this was the afterlife or not because attempting to explain his presence to an actual Tenth Century Pharaoh would have probably resulted in a lot fewer duels and a lot more spears to the gut. “What are you doing here?”

“I would think that would be obvious,” said Kaiba. “I'm here to duel you.”

Atem’s face pinched at this, wrinkles marring his distractingly handsome features. “Kaiba,” he said. “I'm dead.”

“That's beside the point. I'm here to challenge--”

“Kaiba,” Atem interrupted, descending from the dais and approaching him. “I'm _dead._ A very unusual sort of dead grant you, but still entirely, completely dead. Like I have been for thousands of years.”

“That's why I constructed my new interdimensional travel system, to allow me to pierce the veil of...wherever we are. I wanted,” _needed_ , the thought nagged at him, “to face you again.”

Atem stared at him. “You built an interdimensional spaceship because you wanted to challenge me to a duel?”

“Yes,” said Kaiba, refusing to acknowledge the creeping sensation of embarrassment.

“Would it not have been more cost effective to see a grief counselor?”

“I--that's not the point! How do you even know what that is?”

“I spent a great deal of time in the head of a modern teenager,” said Atem, his tone impatient. “I know how the world works.” His expression grew pointed. “ _Yugi_ knows what a grief counselor is.”

“I'm not having this conversation with you.”

“Kaiba, you risked death and bankruptcy to have this conversation with me.” Atem's eyes narrowed. “You risked the _safety of your world_ to have this conversation with me. A world which, may I remind you, contains a number of souls which I hold very dear.”

“This is ridiculous, you expect me to believe that Aigami’s hocus pocus--”

“ _Kaiba_ ,” said Atem. “You are having a conversation with a dead man in a magical alternate dimension. The skeptic act no longer holds water.”

“I…” He could feel the situation rapidly spiraling out of his control. How did Atem always manage to do this to him? And why was he just standing there with that stupid, vaguely ticked off expression, in his stupid outfit that somehow managed to not look ridiculous despite resembling something from an old Cleopatra film, with his stupid, perfect hair--

Somewhere, inside the tangled mess of his own psyche, Kaiba swore he heard an audible snap.

“You left me!” he exploded. “You left without a word or even a note and I thought I _meant_ something damn it! What, did you think I wouldn't notice, like that band of idiots you call friends, that I'd just swap in your fool of a vessel as my rival and go on my merry way like nothing happened, how could you, how could you, _how could you_ \--”

And Atem was staring at him, eyebrows raised, but expression perfectly calm as Kaiba shouted in his face, as though Kaiba’s rage was nothing more than a gentle, summer breeze ruffling his hair, sending those bright, golden strands trailing across his cloaked shoulders …

“-- _and I fucking hate you!_ ”

Silence rang in the throne room.

“Are you done?” said Atem.

“Yes,” said Kaiba, grudgingly.

“Good,” said Atem, and socked him in the solar plexus.

Caught off guard, Kaiba doubled over with a wheeze, which brought him down to roughly eye level with Atem. In the back of his mind, he registered it had felt like being punched with a cattle prod, an electric shock that he'd felt more in his brain than his gut. Unfortunately he was too busy trying not to puke to appreciate the physics of it.

“That,” said Atem. “Was for behaving like a spoilt child, recklessly endangering the lives of of my friends _and_ the human race, and for insulting and denigrating my partner.”

“Yugi--”

“Is a far better man than either of us,” said Atem. “Once again, Kaiba, you mistake compassion and gentleness for weakness. And you chased me here in pursuit of something that was right in front of you the whole time. Tell me, who is the fool?”

“You and Yugi aren't the same person!” said Kaiba. “Isn't that what you're always banging on about?”

Atem folded his arms. “We are different, this is true, but I am not so egotistical as to not understand that your attachment to me has more to do with your own need to express your passion than it does with me.”

Something in Kaiba’s stomach lurched uncomfortably at the word ‘passion’. “What are you saying?”

“What you feel for me cannot sustain itself,” said Atem. “You perceive us as equals, but you so clearly know nothing of what a connection of that nature entails. I will not duel you.” His face softened a shade and Kaiba felt a disturbing twinge at the way the expression reminded him of Yugi--much, he realized, the way Yugi’s challenge in the arena that day had reminded him of Atem--and Atem sighed, a deeply weary sound. “Go home, Kaiba. Talk to Yugi, really talk to him, without threats, without posturing, without challenges or insults. He will understand. And it will be good for you.”

Kaiba realized his hands were trembling and curled them into fists to stop the shaking. “Who the hell are you to claim to know what's good for me?”

Atem raised an eyebrow. “Why absolutely no one, but you clearly found my opinion of such importance that you went to great lengths to acquire it.”

Kaiba’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click. For several long moments, they stared at each other. At last Atem dropped his arms, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“You are still insufferable,” he said. “But I do owe you my gratitude, for helping Yugi. It was…meaningful to see him again.”

Kaiba worked his jaw. He couldn't bring himself to apologize, but he had to acknowledge strength when he saw it. “He's...advanced, I suppose. He does you credit.”

“He does himself credit,” said Atem, mildly. “But I know what you mean and so I will refrain from punching you again.”

Kaiba scowled. “A lucky shot.”

Atem smirked at him in that terribly familiar way and Kaiba felt something among the dusty gears and circuit boards of his heart twitch.

“So,” he said, suddenly awkward, straightening the edges of his trench coat. “Is there no way I can convince you to duel me?”

“None whatsoever,” said Atem. “Our chapter is closed, Kaiba, at least for now. You belong in the world of the living, for better or worse. It is the fate of those left behind to comfort each other.” He smiled slightly. “And you've spent quite enough of your life being haunted by ghosts.”

Kaiba looked away. “Do you...do you want to send a message to Yugi?” Not that he was certain he could return in once piece, but it seemed like the thing to ask.

“No,” said Atem. “All that could or needed to be said was said.” His face glowed with happiness, an alien expression that lit him from within and did funny things to Kaiba's stomach. “Though…” He looked at Kaiba as if assessing him. “I suppose there is one thing you could deliver, but I would rather whisper it.”

Wary of being socked a second time, Kaiba bent over, leaning in close.

Atem stepped in, sudden, and Kaiba barely had a moment to flinch back before Atem caught his chin, quick as lightning, and kissed him.

He froze up, body going rigid, his brain crashing. Again, it was like being touched by warm charge, electrical current that zipped under his skin and curled around his heart. He couldn't move, didn't know if he _wanted_ to move. He was distantly aware that he was making quiet, embarrassing noises into the kiss, Atem's hands warm and tingling against his cheek and the back of his neck.

Smirking, Atem pulled back, dropping a final kiss on the end of his nose. Kaiba blinked, feeling sluggish and suddenly cold.

“Do you think you got all that?” said Atem.

Kaiba couldn't breathe. “I--”

“And he will never ask, but you owe Yugi an apology.” Atem's eyes slitted. “Don't think I didn't catch those terrible things you said to him. And if I find you _didn't_ by the next time I see you, I will be very cross.”

Confusion tangled with strange hope. “What do you mean, ‘next time’?”

Atem snorted in amusement. “Kaiba, what is time to a dead man? I will see you all soon enough.”

They hadn't dueled, but as Kaiba trailed out of the throne room, his mind in turmoil and his mouth still tingling from the kiss, he couldn't help but feel like they had, in a way.

If only he could determine if he'd won, or lost.

  


* * *

 

 

The early winter chill was just starting to permeate Domino City, though it would still be a month or more before the first flakes of snow fell. The world felt too solid, too sharp, and far colder than that strange, golden dimension, the damp wind settling into Kaiba's bones in a way he didn't recall from even a year ago. He leaned over the railing of the balcony of his bedroom, playing with the reflection of the waxing moon above him in the dark screen of his mobile phone, his mind roiling.

_Talk to him._

He'd already made up his mind. In truth, he hadn't needed Atem's command; Yugi had already pierced the caked shell of confusion and regret left in the wake of the Pharaoh’s departure. Whether or not his life points had actually hit zero, Kaiba recognized a worthy opponent, as he always had, recognized the steel core and sharp mind under layers of politeness and gentility. Whether he liked it or not, he was incapable of ignoring Yugi for long.

Still he hesitated.

He was used to evaluating others as adversaries, as potential tools to be used, not as friends. Kaiba did not have friends. The weight of the name did not allow for it.

Kaiba did not have friends, but did Seto?

He pressed the contact button before he could think better of it and pushed the phone to his ear.

Three rings and then, _“Kaiba?”_ Yugi’s voice was scratchy, as though he'd been woken. _“I wasn't--you're back then?”_

“Did Mokuba tell you?”

 _“Only that you'd gone,”_ a quiet, weary breath, _“And where.”_

“I've only been back a few hours.”

_“So you made it then? Crossed over?”_

“Yes.”

 _“I see.”_ And there was a wealth of buried emotion in those words. Kaiba gripped the phone a little harder.

“Come over,” he said, before he could think better of it. “The mansion. Not Kaiba Corp.”

 _“What--you mean for a duel?”_ He heard the rustle of blankets as Yugi moved. _“It's the middle of the night, can't it wait until--”_

“Not a duel.”

_“Then for what?”_

“To,” said Kaiba. “Have tea. Eat.” He had to hunt for the words, forcing them out like reluctant horses through a gate. “To. Talk.”

Silence. Kaiba wondered if he'd sounded as inane as he felt.

 _“Kaiba,”_ said Yugi, sounding as he was feeling out the shape of the words before he spoke them. _“Are you asking if we can hang out?”_

“Yes. That.”

More silence. Kaiba adjusted the phone against his ear. The balcony railing cut a cold line into his stomach through the cloth of his shirt.

_“Give me half an hour.”_

The phone disconnected. Kaiba turned his back to the garden and let himself slide down into a seated position, knees up against his chest.

 

If Kaiba hadn't been sitting in the dark foyer, perched on a narrow stool and watching the shadows of the ornamental trees dance across the marble floor, no one would have heard Yugi's quiet knock. He climbed to his feet and answered the door.

Yugi looked as if he'd come half in his pajamas, engulfed in a heavy hooded sweatshirt and wearing some sort of cloth pants stuffed into his boots. His hair looked more wild than usual, and he was carrying a six pack of beer.

Kaiba blinked at it. “Where did you get that?”

Yugi raised an eyebrow. “I bought it. I turned eighteen last June.”

Kaiba realized with a small jolt that his own birthday had passed while he was between dimensions. “I see.”

Yugi shrugged. “I've had more than one conversation of this type. They generally go better with beer.” He scrunched his shoulders, pushing the hood of his sweatshirt higher around his throat. “Can I come in?”

Kaiba realized he was standing in the open doorway like a fool and backed away, ushering Yugi inside and closing the door behind him. “This way.”

Yugi's boots clicked on the floor beside him as they climbed the stairs. Unthinking, Kaiba guided him to a small, familiar sitting room in the upper level, one near his own rooms, where he'd spent more than one quiet evening with Mokuba, a small couch bracketed by end tables, dark television set perched atop a tangled nest of wires and gaming consoles, walls lined with bookshelves filled with actual books rather than the facades in the drawing room downstairs. He crossed the carpeted floor and flipped on a table lamp.

He turned to see Yugi lingering in the door, blinking into the warm light.

“Come in,” he said, his voice hoarser than he would have liked.

Yugi did so, perching on the couch in a polite, not-too-comfortable way, and setting the beer on the coffee table with a clunk. After a moment of hesitation, he reached out, ripped open the cardboard package, and extracted one of the cans.

He offered it to Kaiba.

Kaiba grasped it without thinking, the can cold between his palms, and sat beside him, a proprietous distance away. He heard the scratch of metal and hiss of escaping carbonation as Yugi popped the lid of his can, and fumbled with his own. The beer was cheap, a little sour, and it fizzed uncomfortably in his empty stomach. Kaiba hunched over his knees, can dangling between his his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Yugi looking at him.

Kaiba swallowed. “Do you want to ask how he is?”

“I'm assuming as well as he was before,” said Yugi. “Though I suspect he was surprised to see you.”

Kaiba huffed a short laugh through his nose. “That's one way of putting it. He punched me.”

Yugi frowned. “I'd ask why but I can probably guess.”

“I doubt it,” said Kaiba, and bit his tongue, reconsidering the acerbic remark. “He wasn't too pleased about...what I said to you.”

“Ah,” said Yugi.

Kaiba tilted the beer back and forth between his palms, watching the glint of liquid at the mouth of the can. “I...owe you an apology. For that. What I said.”

Yugi drew in a quiet breath but said nothing. Kaiba's stomach roiled.

“It wasn't true,” he barreled on. “You are more than a vessel, you are a powerful duelist in your own right. I said those things out of grief and anger and you didn't deserve them.”

Silence. Kaiba couldn't remember the last time he'd apologized to someone in such detail. Finally he caved and snuck a look at Yugi.

Yugi was staring at him, an expression somewhere between surprise and deep sadness on his face and Kaiba felt suddenly caught, horrifically exposed because he knew, without a doubt, that _here_ was someone who understood the strange pain in his chest, the confusing web that stretched back across eternities, the chains of something that he didn't want to call magic.

And then Yugi was reaching out, tugging the can from Kaiba's nerveless fingers and setting it on the coffee table beside his own and the only thing that Kaiba could register was that his fingers were warm, so strange and warm and then Yugi was enfolding his hands between his own, his palms damp with condensation and Kaiba crumpled over their clasped hands.

He wasn't sure if he was crying or screaming or dry heaving, but Yugi sat there, one hand, tugged free in the shuffle, resting in Kaiba's hair, until the convulsions ceased.

“He's gone,” said Kaiba, inanely, because he could say nothing else.

“I know,” said Yugi, and there was an echo of emptiness there and Kaiba felt so very stupid because if anyone would have felt Atem's absence, it would be Yugi.

“How do you bear it?” he said.

“I have my friends,” said Yugi. “And my grandfather. And on the worst days, I don't.” His fingers carded through Kaiba's hair. “And maybe it's not the healthiest way of looking at it, but in the dark, when it's so quiet I can't bear it, I remember that goodbyes are rarely forever.”

Kaiba snorted, an involuntary expulsion of dark amusement. “He said much the same thing.” He stirred restlessly under Yugi's hand, torn between the urge to pull away, to gather his composure, and press up into the warmth of his palm like a cat begging to be stroked. “What's a mortal lifetime to a god-king?”

“That's the wrong question,” said Yugi. “The real question is: what's a mortal life to a god-king? And I have it on good authority that several mortal lives mean very much to one in particular.” He fell silent, as if considering his next words. “Including yours.”

He tugged gently and Kaiba found himself complying, strangely willing to be guided, his head coming to rest on Yugi's lap, a position that he dimly recognized, but from the other side, his own hands in Mokuba’s hair, the both of them small still, children's tears and children's comfort. It felt different, like this, to lean on another and know, in his bones, that they were strong enough to bear his weight, just for a little while.

Surely a vessel that had held blood and shadow magic and divine fire made flesh, that held a heart so brave it had captured the love of a pharaoh, could keep Seto Kaiba grounded to the mortal plane.

He turned his head to look up at Yugi, the jagged silhouette of his hair and eyes too brilliantly purple to be entirely natural. A touch of magic left behind.

“He asked me to…” And then Kaiba regretted speaking because Yugi's gaze had sharpened with curiosity and his words tangled inside him and his mouth was tingling unbearably.

“Yes?” said Yugi, his expression honestly puzzled.

After Gozaburo, Kaiba had thought himself beyond embarrassment, but Atem, and now Yugi, continued to prove him wrong.

“You and the--you and Atem,” said Kaiba, focusing his gaze somewhere on the ceiling behind Yugi's head. “Were you…” He couldn't think of any way to phrase it that didn't sound prurient or obscene. “Did the two of you ever…?”

“Ah,” Yugi gave a self-deprecating little laugh. “I see what you're getting at. The short answer is yes. The long answer is…more complicated.”

Yugi ran his fingers through Kaiba's hair, as though grounding himself. “Dartz…changed a lot of things,” he said. “I think we were heading in that direction, since Battle City, but it wasn't really something either of us let ourselves consider, for...a lot of reasons. But after, we…” Yugi paused, as though trying to determine how to phrase his next words. “I think a lot of the reason it felt like sex was because that's what a human brain could understand, but when I think back, it was a lot more like, well like Polymerization honestly. We'd always had some boundaries between us--he was always very respectful, after Duelist Kingdom--but he was in shambles, and we were both really confused and I just kind of…” He turned a bit red and avoided Kaiba's gaze. “Held him down and pulled him into me. I don't know if souls are supposed to be able to do that but we did and I…”

He smiled to himself, gaze distant, and there was a touch of that same, radiant expression Kaiba had seen on Atem's face. It sent a wave of strange heat through him.

Yugi shook his head, eyes clearing, and peered down at him again. “Are you surprised?”

“No,” said Kaiba. “I guessed, more or less when he…” His face felt hot. “He asked me to deliver...” He still couldn't bring himself to voice it.

And Yugi, clever Yugi, far too clever for his own good, smiled knowingly, those too-bright eyes wide with surprise and delight.

“Oh,” he said. “I see.” And then he was bending at the waist, his wild hair falling around them like a protective curtain and he was kissing Kaiba.

It didn't have that strange, electric quality as the kiss with Atem. It was an ordinary, entirely human kiss, wet and soft, Yugi's hand warm on his cheek, but Kaiba found himself letting out a desperate, embarrassing sound, arching up into him. Yugi laughed and hushed him, little soothing noises bubbling out of him as he kissed Kaiba again and again.

“I see,” he repeated, cradling Kaiba's head, and Kaiba felt something of that cracked pain in his chest ease. “I see.”

Kaiba thought the spell would be broken when they woke the next morning on the couch, stiff and aching and with just a little less clothing than might have been considered acceptable, but Yugi invited himself to breakfast and laughed with Mokuba over waffles and Kaiba realized that everything sometimes in fact, did turn out alright.

 

* * *

 

 

It was strange, holding the contents of two lives inside him. They moved, tugging at the angles and edges of him, welling up and threatening to overflow at moments, causing the image he projected to flicker erratically. He was High Priest, kinsman to the Pharaoh, king in his own right, builder of stone and nation, who'd loved a brilliant, pale woman with a dragon’s soul, and then he would blink and he was the businessman, his body too young for the memories it held, his iron grey hair dark once more, waiting for the arrival of his lover of fifty years.

The sound of bare feet on stone, and Seth-not-Seto turned to welcome her, enfolding Kisara in his arms and pressing his face against her cascade of white hair. She smiled and kissed his cheek.

“You're buzzing, you know that?” she said. “That felt like kissing a wasps nest. Are you anxious?”

“Can you blame me?” he said. Across the throne room he could see Atem pacing amongst the pillars, cloak snapping about his ankles.

“No,” she said, leaning into him. He rested his head atop hers, allowing her to entwine their fingers. “But your worries are for naught, as they often are. He will come. And all will be as it should.”

“Is that woman's wisdom or dragon’s?” he said and she laughed aloud, bright and unusually unrestrained.

“Both,” she said, smiling up at him. “And Yugi would not be himself if he arrived at any other time than in the nick of it.”

He hummed in agreement, and watched the entryway.

He knew the moment it happened. The harmonics of the room shifted very slightly and Atem's crowned head came up; there was the echo of footsteps and a shadow cast along a sunlit floor.

Yugi looked much the same as he had when Seto had passed, hair grey and thinning about the temples, his eyes, still magic-bright, lined with deep crow's feet. He ambled forward, his pace somewhat hesitant, but his posture bold and erect, something Seto-not-Seth knew he'd worked hard to maintain over the decades, out of determination to not allow Kaiba to be even taller than him.

Yugi only had to cross the threshold before Atem broke.

Casting off the veil of dignity that they all knew was a facade, Atem darted across the throne room, sweeping Yugi up with such force that they spun around, half vanishing into the flapping folds of Atem's cloak and then Yugi was young again and laughing, his face wet with joyful tears, pushing aside the fabric, leaning in to grasp Atem's face and kissing him and the room rang with the thrum of magic, a great breath released, a puzzle piece slotted into place, and Seth-not-Seto closed his eyes in contentment, his face warm in the golden reflection of their happiness.

Then Kisara elbowed him in the side and broke the moment.

He scowled down at her, but she only smirked and extracted herself from his grip, giving him a fond, but pointed, smack across the flank.

And Seto-not-Seth stiffened, because the golden light had turned his way and they were looking at him.

He balked, in the face of that bright blaze, but Yugi was smiling and stretching out his hand and Atem was watching him with an expression of playful challenge and the being that had been High Priest Seth and Seto Kaiba had never backed down from anything in his life.

He crossed the throne room, his sandals melting away into boots, his cloak snapping out behind him, forming his trench coat. And Yugi caught his hand, drew him into the circle, and they kissed him, together, in the shadow of the pillars, and all was as it should have been.


End file.
